Happy 2011! A New Project for the New Year

As the holidays passed, I kept the idea of my striped Periwinkle Sheep shawl in the back of my mind. I think I know how I want to knit it now. I like the way the Damson shawl drapes, so I'll use that as the base pattern.


I'm going to alternate the two purples at the beginning. After it passes my shoulder span, then I'll alternate a purple and the blue (at least I think I'll start with blue). In the widest stripe I'll alternate the blue and the silver. At this point I could go two different ways. I could continue the pattern by alternating silver and purple, or I could keep using the blue, then add some purple and then alternate the purple with the silver. With the first variation, I could add some stripes of alternating purple and then do the light colors stripes all over again. Hmm. I think I like that idea best instead of separating the blue and the silver. Somehow I was invited to a New Year fiber party this coming weekend and I think the shawl would be perfect to work on. I better get to winding the hanks of yarn. I really find out how much 400-450 yards are when I do that. At least the cats will be amused for a while. They get very bored in the winter time. Recently Midnight sat very close when I made hairpipe necklaces for gifts.

One Fun Household Chore

In my house changing the sheets on the bed is good for a laugh. The cats have always thought of it as playtime. First Emily loves to chase whatever is moving when I'm trying to remove it. Then she loves to get underneath any layer that I'm putting on. Midnight liked to sit on top and bat Emily as she scooted underneath. It's really hilarious when three cats are playing at once. I don't have a camcorder but here are some examples of what I mean from the web:










Fortunately I don't have this problem:


It was a lot of fun writing this post. I've found my cats don't participate as actively as some cats, meaning my sheets may last a little longer.

Christmas With The Trimmings

Midnight enjoying the lights.



This year I changed the theme of the tree entirely when I decided I wanted a natural tree.

Periwinkle Sheep Yarn

Karin Maag-Tanchak is the fiber artist behind The Periwinkle Sheep. For a while she had a lovely yarn shop by the same name in Albany, New York. I wasn't the only person sorry to see it close. She hand dyes yarn in lovely colors. I bought at least one skein of her sock yarn. I still haven't knitting it, so I can't say how it wears, but I do know it's very soft.

This week I was very surprised to learn that I was one of the winners of her Perwinkle Sheep Whim drawing. I won the Periwinkle Sheep Silver Lining fingering yarn. The previous Friday I had attended the Heritage Spinners' Christmas party, where at times I sat next to Karin. She told me to enter the drawing.



I usually do not have any luck with raffles, drawings or grab bags. This Christmas party was no exception. My number was 2 and the gift I chose was a bag of two tone Romney fleece and a hand felt kit for pumpkins. I don't spin, I have no overwhelming desire to have felt pumpkins and orange and avocado are not colors in my wardrobe. It was the type of drawing where the person drawing after you could choose a gift that had already been chosen by someone. I tried very hard to interest people in what I had. I was only successful at giving away the Romney roving. However, a young woman seated near me chose hand-knit catnip mice and neither she nor her mother had cats. She very nicely gave me the mice for my cats. And somehow a friend arranged it so that I traded the pumpkin kit for a skein of Periwinkle Sky Sparkle, a lovely denim blue.

I could not see using that pretty sparkly yarn on socks. The Periwinkle Sheep sells yarn at the Troy Market, so the next morning I went to the market to the stall. I decided to buy two different purple sock yarns to complement the Silver Lining Wink. I thought the colors would help the lighter blue and the sparkle stand out. Somehow it follows that I would win one more skein. When it rains, it pours. However, the Silver Lining Wink looks lovely with the other colors and I envision knitting a shawl in graduated stripes out of the yarn. I'll also have fun planning what to to with the left over yarn.

Is it Christmas yet?

Here are a few photos.

Emily has always liked this set of felines dressed for the holidays.

One winter I was so busy at work dressing the plush cat as an angel was about as far as I got with Christmas decorations. Emily became enamored with the angel cat and enjoyed snuggling with it.

Midnight enjoys the holiday in a more prosaic way.

Molly looks like an angel here, doesn't she? I had to train her and Emily not to wrestle near or under the tree. I never cured her of the habit of diving behind the tree. The lower branches all got flattened. She only stopped out of boredom. I wonder if she'll start again once the tree is decorated. At least she's entertaining.

I don't know what it is with me, but I'm never prepared for Christmas when it comes. Once when I said this, my mother laughed and replied she didn't know why because it was the same time every year. It may have something to do with my allergies and that it takes me twice as other people to get things done.

And then things just happen. I had a stomach bug the beginning of this week. Three-quarters of the lights on the tree wouldn't light. A woman whom I met earlier this fall called me. She's been without a job and wanted help getting something to give her grandchildren for Christmas. I'm just surviving right now and have no experience buying presents for children. I contacted some friends whom I thought might help. Today I have to make 3 hairpipe necklaces for the children. I'll have to deliver them today or tomorrow.

Telecheck called me last night to tell me I owed them money and promised to call me repeatedly until it was paid. I never received any notification that there was a thing wrong with my purchase from Amazon. Amazon's process broke down and got me into this mess. Three days before Christmas it's not nice to be treated like a criminal and threatened with harrassment. I was too upset to work (currently I work from home) and decided I had to do other things to work it off.

I worked on the Christmas tree mess. I had stopped with a nest of wires and bulbs a short way down the tree. I discovered that there was a mini extension cord inside the prelit tree and the unlit strings were fine, just disconnected. I don't know if one of the furry children is at fault or not. I had started to take the strings off from the top down. Taking off the lights off a prelit tree is difficult. They were very well wrapped around the branches. I plugged in the strings to stop myself from taking off more than I had to. Fortunately I had only taken off the top string. By taking off the top of the tree I could free that. It's all untangled and waiting for me to put it back on. It seems to be a long string for the top.

As usual I am feeling overwhelmed and not sure if I can get through everything. I've made a list and checking it twice, hoping to get the most important things done. I hope all your preparations are going better than mine.

The cats seemed entertained by my travails. They enjoy the lights on the tree and the decorations, and of course getting new toys.

Countdown to Christmas

I thought I'd share some favorite Christmas photos this week. Emily has been a ham since I've gotten her and she's featured in many





Midnight and Emily both enjoyed the fresh Christmas tree that I cut myself. Emily wasn't even a year old yet.


This was the most beautiful tree I ever had. To my mind, this is what makers of artificial Christmas trees should be aiming to copy, not dense furry pyramids.

28-Row Scarf

I have a lovely winter dress that I wanted to knit a scarf for and I've kept changing my mind about what I wanted. I finally decided on flirty and colorful. A possibility of wearing it this month made me think of what I had in my stash. I decided on this yarn from Plymouth:

With that mind, I decided on this pattern:


I liked how the swirls made bulky yarn flirty.

Now I've reached the part where I start the rib, and I've decided that I want to do something else. I'm currently going through my small library of knitting books and found several candidates in Volume 2 of the Harmony Guides.